Ripples

CalTrans to Clean Up Stormwater Pollution
Millions of gallons of pollution will be kept out of Southern California waters and beaches after Santa Monica Baykeeper and the Natural Resource Defense Council reached an unprecedented agreement in January with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The agreement forces the state transportation agency to dramatically reduce dangerous runoff from 1,000 miles of highways across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

Each year oil, sediments, metals and nutrients wash into Southern California waters from the highways and freeways. Pollution in some stormdrains is dangerous enough to qualify as hazardous waste. The new agreement will reduce stormwater pollution 20 percent below 1994 levels and is expected to keep more than six million pounds of pollution out of area waters every year, including toxic zinc, lead and other debris.

Brayton Point
The U.S. EPA reached a historic settlement with the operators of the Northeast’s dirtiest coal-fired power plant last December, ending the destructive practice of once-through cooling at the Brayton Point Station in Somerset, Massachusetts. In 1985, Brayton Point began swallowing one billion gallons of water per day to cool its machinery and discharging the water back into nearby Mount Hope Bay at 95º F. Immediately, fishermen observed troubling declines in the local fish stocks, calling the once productive Mount Hope Bay a dead zone. Studies later demonstrated that Mount Hope Bay experienced an unprecedented 87 percent reduction in overall fish abundance and diversity.
Narragansett Baykeeper and its parent organization Save the Bay celebrated the settlement, the culmination of a 15-year long advocacy campaign promising full compliance with the Clean Water Act. The agreement follows a federal court ruling last year in favor of Waterkeeper Alliance stating that EPA cannot allow power plants to kill a trillion fish per year through their cooling water intakes. The Brayton Point owners will now spend an estimated $500 million dollars to build 450 foot-high natural draft cooling towers, and Narragansett Baykeeper will continue to work with a network of organizations to restore fish populations and bring the bay back to life.

Splashback: Environmental Justice Renewal Act Introduced
In January 2008 Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (D-CA) announced the introduction of the Environmental Justice Renewal Act. The act will codify the 1994 Executive Order on Environmental Justice and strengthen the federal infrastructure to address environmental justice. It will increase accountability by requiring routine, independent evaluation of the government’s actions to reduce and eliminate the disparate impact of environmental pollution on minority and low-income communities.

Waterkeeper Family Album
• Jack Zander, born to Waterkeeper Alliance staff member Marc Yaggi and Sarah Douglis on February 22, weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs. 7 oz.

• Thomas Gustvus Colhoun was born to West Rhode Riverkeeper’s Amy Colhoun on January 15, 2008.

Congratulations!

River Day
The town of Murrurundi in New South Wales, Australia, came to life last November when a thousand people saw the unveiling of River Quiver, a sculpture created by 180 schoolchildren and environmental artist Jennifer Turpin at an event co-hosted by Upper Hunter Waterkeeper.

Working on the Railroad
In February NY/NJ Baykeeper and Hackensack Riverkeeper and the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway Corporation (NYS&W) announced a settlement of their federal litigation regarding solid waste transload facilities in Hudson County, NJ. The Waterkeepers, represented by Richard Webster of the Eastern Environmental Law Center, originally sought to stop NYS&W from conducting activities at five facilities in North Bergen where waste materials (primarily construction debris and contaminated soils from cleanup sites) are loaded into railcars for shipment to out-of-state disposal sites. Since commencement of the litigation, three of the facilities were closed. At one of the remaining facilities, NYS&W enclosed the operations and installed systems to control wastewater and dust. At the other, NYS&W has agreed to take additional operational measures to minimize its environmental impact. 

As part of the settlement — in which NYS&W does not admit any liability or wrongdoing of any kind, or of any violation of or any failure to comply with any applicable law — NYS&W has also agreed that any unpermitted facility for the loading of waste into railcars which it operates in the future will have effective safeguards to protect the environment. Additionally, NYS&W has agreed to contribute $30,000 towards a project to benefit the environment.

Valuable Waterfront and Wildlife Habitat Protected in Mattapoisett, MA
Over 100 acres of salt marsh and coastal forest, known as West Hill, has been permanently protected by The Coalition for Buzzards Bay (home of Buzzards Baykeeper) and the Mattapoisett Land Trust. West Hill supports threatened and endangered species such as diamondback terrapins as well as shorebirds like American bitterns and roseate and least terns.

NY/NJ Baykeeper Hosts Low-Impact Development Conference
NY/NJ Baykeeper invited environmentalists, academics, government officials and concerned citizens from the Hudson-Raritan Estuary area to discuss the present and future state of Low Impact Development at a conference this February. The attendees assessed the use of rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavements and other technologies to stop stormwater from overwhelming area sewer systems during heavy wet weather events.

HONORS

Neuse River Foundation Receives Conservation Communication Award
The Wake Soil and Water Conservation District presented its Dan Wilkinson Conservation Communication Award to the Neuse River Foundation for leadership in communicating the message of natural resource stewardship.

Neuse River Film Festival and Puppet Show
Neuse River Foundation celebrated the 3rd Annual Neuse Riverkeeper Film Festival in four major cities across North Carolina in late January and early February. Each year the festival showcases films from diverse genres with one thing in common—water. This year the festival featured a puppet show about animals determined to help protect their habitat.

Olin Busted for Mercury Cover-Up
Savannah Riverkeeper halted Olin Corporation’s plans to cover up their mercury-contaminated wastewater channel in Augusta, Georgia. The mercury-cell chlorine plant is the second greatest source of mercury pollution in the state. Two years ago, Savannah Riverkeeper brought the company under scrutiny for contaminating the nearby channel with mercury at 100 times the concentration lethal to aquatic life. The company was ordered to negotiate a proper disposal plan with the state environmental agency. But in January, Riverkeeper noticed that Olin began construction to just cover the mercury sediment without state or federal approval. The company’s construction plans have been rejected by the state and Olin must now wait for state approval before proceeding further.

Timber Company to Clean Up Cancer-Causing Dioxin
The Simpson Timber Company must remove tons of dioxin-laden sediment from a contaminated site near Humboldt Bay, in Eureka, California, after Humboldt Baykeeper and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics reached a settlement with the company this February. Baykeeper and their partner filed suit against Simpson two years ago after tests indicated that the bay was polluted with dioxin at levels tens of thousands of times higher than federal standards. Dioxin is one of the most potent carcinogens known. The contamination is a remnant of a now widely-banned wood preservative called pentachlorophenol that the timber company used in the 1960s.

Under the settlement, Simpson must dig up contaminated sediment from the site, adjacent to Humboldt Bay’s only public fishing pier, and haul it to a licensed disposal location. The company must also restore the site as a functioning wetland and install groundwater-monitoring wells to ensure that the residual contamination does not leave the site. In addition, a Humboldt Bay Wetlands Restoration Fund will be established for restoration projects to offset damage caused by the contamination.

Precedent Setting Victory for Standing in Mexico
Defensa Ambiental del Noroeste (DAN), a Mexican legal advocacy group that works closely with Baja California Waterkeepers, won an important victory in Mexican Federal Court. The decision stems from litigation initiated by DAN against the federal Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources for illegally granting the company Terminal de Gas GNL Sonora permission to construct and operate a liquefied natural gas terminal on the Sonoran coast of the Gulf of California. This case establishes a strong legal precedent on standing — the ability of citizen groups to sue to protect the environment.

Historically, the Environmental Secretariat has systematically rejected appeals from civil society groups against the agency’s resolutions authorizing mega-development tourism and industrial projects in sensitive ecosystems. The agency’s argument has been that Mexican law does not permit citizens ‘standing’ in these cases, and so they cannot sue. This time was no different. In May 2007, DAN’s standing in the case was denied. DAN, however, appealed the decision to a Federal Court, which ruled in DAN’s favor. Mexican civil society groups and individuals now have much clearer access to use the courts to stop environmentally destructive projects and to encourage sustainable development.

Una Victoria que Sienta Precedente para Representatividad en México
Defensa Ambiental del Noroeste (DAN), un grupo de abogacía legal Mexicano y quien trabaja muy de cerca con Waterkeepers en Baja California, logro una importante victoria en una corte federal Mexicana. Esta decisión proviene del litigio que DAN inicio en contra de la Secretaria del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales por haber otorgado ilegalmente un permiso a la compañía Terminal de Gas GNL Sonora para construir y operar una terminal de gas natural licuado en la costa Sonorense del Golfo de California. Este caso establece un gran precedente legal en representatividad donde grupos ciudadanos pueden demandar por la protección del ambiente.

Históricamente la Secretaria del Medio Ambiente sistemáticamente rechazaba los amparos provenientes de grupos de la sociedad civil que apelaban las resoluciones de esta Secretaria que autorizaba mega desarrollos turísticos y proyectos industriales en frágiles ecosistemas. El argumento de esta Secretaria era que la ley Mexicana no otorga a los ciudadanos representatividad en estos casos y por ende no pueden demandar. Las cosas parecían iguales en esta ocasión. En mayo del 2007, la representatividad de DAN en el caso fue rechazada. Sin embargo, DAN apelo esta decisión en una corte Federal y esta fallo a favor de DAN. Los grupos de la sociedad civil Mexicana y los individuos ahora tienen mayor y mejor acceso al uso de las cortes para evitar proyectos destructivos y promover el desarrollo sustentable.

WATERKEEPER Clean and Safe Energy Campaign: Mercury
America’s 1,100 coal burning power plants spew 48 tons of mercury each year, poisoning our waters, our fish and our communities. Human beings exposed to mercury face a grim inventory of terrible illnesses including neurological and kidney damage, liver failure and fatal heart disease. Federal scientists estimate that 410,000 American children are born each year with unsafe levels of mercury in their blood putting them at risk of mental retardation and permanent IQ loss. These health risks are unacceptable.
Waterkeeper Alliance is forcing improvements in federal mercury control policies and taking aggressive legal action against individual mercury polluters. Already in 2008 we have scored major victories on both these fronts.

VICTORY: Mercury Control Rules
In 2005 Waterkeeper Alliance, in coalition with public health and environmental groups, fourteen states and dozens of Native American Tribes, filed a lawsuit challenging weak mercury control rules issued by U.S. EPA. Those rules would have allowed coal-fired power plants to continue to dump mercury into our waterways for decades to come. On February 8, in a complete victory, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia invalidated EPA’s rules. The Court found that EPA’s removal of power plants from the Clean Air Act’s list of toxic sources and the creation of an anemic “cap and trade” regulatory scheme were in violation of federal law. With EPA’s rules declared illegal, the Agency is now obligated to develop new standards for power plant mercury emissions that demand proven, affordable technologies to reduce mercury emissions.

VICTORY: DTE Case
Waterkeeper Alliance Legal Director Scott Edwards, a Canadian citizen, filed charges last year alleging that DTE Energy’s coal-fired energy complex on the banks of the St. Clair River violated Canada’s Fisheries Act. Currently, both the Canadian and U.S. sides of the St. Clair are subject to highly restrictive fish consumption advisories because of elevated levels of mercury. Native populations along the Canadian side of the river have had their commercial fishing rights stripped away because of the devastating neurological effects on developing fetuses and young children that can result from eating mercury-contaminated fish. Canadian law allows any Canadian citizen to independently prosecute water pollution offences in the criminal courts, and potential fines under the Fisheries Act can be up to $1 million a day. On January 17 a Canadian court gave the green light for the prosecution of the U.S. energy company for mercury pollution of the St. Clair River. DTE Energy will soon have to answer to a Canadian judge for poisoning Canadian waters, fish and citizens.

The energy industry and EPA have been claiming that they are unable to control mercury emissions. But that’s simply not true. A U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored test of pollution control technology in 2004 reduced mercury emissions by 94% at the same St. Clair plant that Edwards is prosecuting. Unfortunately, at the conclusion of the 30-day test, DTE Energy stopped using the mercury control technology and today continues its mercury emissions unabated. By forcing DTE Energy to reinstall this technology, while at the same time forcing EPA to rewrite its illegal mercury rule, Waterkeeper will make 90 percent mercury reduction technology the standard for all U.S. coal-fired power plants.

Vintage Petroleum to Stop Pollution
A gas production facility owned by Vintage Petroleum must now protect area waters after Santa Barbara Channelkeeper collected evidence that the facility was polluting a small creek that opens into two public beaches. Channelkeeper initially became aware of the problem during a winter storm in 2007 when a large amount of sediment was discharging from the creek mouth to the ocean. Water samples revealed unusually high levels of petroleum hydrocarbons in the surface water. Channelkeeper notified the Los Angeles Regional Water Board, which confirmed multiple pollution violations and sediment concentrations over 1,000 times benchmark levels. Vintage Petroleum, owned by the fifth largest petroleum producer in the U.S., will now have to control sediments and other pollutants from the site. The violations also send a warning to the Los Angeles Water Board that they must do their job and monitor these facilities to keep the Southern California Coast clean and safe for the public.